1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved clip for securing wiring harnesses in position within their respective mounting spaces in an automobile, for example. More specifically, the invention relates to such clip as specified wherein it is flexible in design so as to reduce its overall dimension for facilitation of the assembly procedure. Further, the invention relates to the same wherein means for nullifying that flexibility is provided thereby attaining highly reliable fixing of the wiring harness as well as improvements on the assembly efficiency of wiring harnesses.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has commonly been used, in a vehicle e.g. an automobile, clips for securing wiring harnesses consisting of bundled wirings in position in respectively variously located mounting spaces. The conventional clip is usually of a T-shaped construction including a holder portion and a transverse flange portion. The former is adapted for longitudinal support of a wiring harness, to which the clip is intended to be applied, while the latter being provided with a clamp for fastening the clip to a fixed part of the vehicle structure.
In assembly, the clip is first brought into contact with the associated wiring harness, binding the two members together by use of fastening tapes wound therearound. This combination then is applied to its mounting position through a hole formed on the enclosing panel or wall defining the mounting space, and the clip is secured via its clamp to the fixed part of the vehicle structure.
With this ordinary clip, the assembly work has hitherto been encountered with the problems that it is almost always necessary to provide the enclosing panel or wall defining the mounting space with through-holes of greater dimension than the overall dimension of the clip, otherwise the two members i.e. the clip and the wiring harness would have to be combined together laboriously in so a tight space after the clip alone has once been brought into the mounting space through the hole; the provision of unnecessarily greater through-holes on the panel or wall may result in deterioration of the panel strength or may be accompanied by extra jobs of subsequently covering or stopping up the greater dimensioned holes; uneconomy in cost and man-hour required in the assembly procedure may result therefrom.
Therefore, the invention aims, in one aspect, to provide an improved clip for securing an associated wiring harness in position in an automobile, in which the above-stated drawbacks can be eliminated so as to improve the assembly efficiency of wiring harnesses.
Further, it has been proposed in an attemp to obviate the above problems, to use a clip which is formed on its flange portion with lateral recesses or grooves of adequate configuration in order to make the flange portion easily bendable via this constriction. When assembling the wiring harness into its prescribed mounting position, this clip can be reduced in dimension by bending the flange portion via its constriction so that it may be inserted, through a comparatively small hole on the panel, into its mounting position. Nevertheless, this clip suffered from the problems that due to objectionable vibrations or shocks occurring in the vehicle, the clip as secured to the fixed part of the vehicle may cause bending of its flange portion, which in turn causes loose securing of the wiring harness relative to the fixed part of the vehicle structure, resulting in an undesirable displacement of the harness. This may tend to dislocate connectors installed at the junctions of the wiring harness.
The invention, therefore, has also been devised in consideration of the foregoing, and in another aspect, aims to provide a unique clip of the type which is provided with reinforcing means of rigidity adapted, upon the insertion of the clip and harness in combination through the panel hole, to be complementarily abutted against the bendable constriction of the flange portion to render the flange portion unbendable with its rigidity, attaining increased reliabilities of secure positioning of the wiring harness.